Thank you, city commissioners, for not applying the rubber stamp to a recommendation to saddle the city’s new recreation center with a meaningless moniker like “SportQuest.”

Not surprisingly, the recommendation was arrived at with the help of a local public relations firm, which was paid to facilitate a process that produced a name that is about as generic as it comes. Even with the recommended bold-faced “Q,” it says nothing about Lawrence or Kansas University. It could be the name of any sports-related facility in the country. Only if the title is encumbered by additional verbage like “Lawrence SportQuest at Rock Chalk Park” does it say anything about the community.

The good news is that Lawrence city commissioners also were under-whelmed with the recommendation and decided Tuesday to take a couple more weeks to consider other possibilities. One commissioner expressed some interest in a name — which was rejected by the consultants and staff — that includes “Ad Astra,” which means “to the stars” and is part of the state’s motto. That’s not bad, but we hope Lawrence residents also will speak up and offer some other good choices. The reality is that, regardless of what name the city comes up with, the new center probably will be known informally as the “Rock Chalk” recreation center.

According to a staff report attached to Tuesday’s commission agenda, “Staff felt that the combination of these two words ‘sport’ and ‘quest’ summarized the dual goal of the facility, was a unique phrase, and were simple terms that had multiple meanings when used for marketing purposes.”

Sometimes, a name with “multiple meanings” actually has no meaning at all. “SportQuest” has the ring of a marketing campaign, but the two words “sport” and “quest” may not reflect the “dual goal of the facility” as envisioned by local residents/taxpayers. For them, the two goals that city officials promised this facility would meet were: 1) providing a new facility for local fitness classes, free play and other community activities and 2) providing the kind of gymnasium space that would attract regional sports events that the city couldn’t accommodate with its current facilities.

To meet the grand financial projections to support the new recreation center, officials certainly must be able to market the facility outside Lawrence, but they shouldn’t lose sight of the center’s role in meeting community, as well as regional, needs.

So, let the games begin. We’re betting some community input will do a far better job than a hired consultant of producing a catchy name with some local significance for that new recreation center at Rock Chalk Park.